


Hard Therapy

by Mendicantelle



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Swearing, Team as Family, Therapy, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 12:11:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11104329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendicantelle/pseuds/Mendicantelle
Summary: Peter is pretty much decided now that they - all of them, his ragged morally-dubious bunch of so-called friends - could do with therapy. Trouble is, he hasn't the first idea how therapy actually works or indeed if you even get therapy out here at the ass-end of the galaxy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The feels made me do it. Never wrote for these guys before, I hope I got them down OK. 
> 
> Post GotG2.

His mask folding back from his face so he can take a single winded gasp of breath after hitting the ground, Peter is pretty much decided now that they - all of them, his ragged morally-dubious bunch of so-called friends - could do with therapy. Trouble is, he hasn't the first idea how therapy actually works or indeed if you even  _get_ therapy out here at the ass-end of the galaxy.   
  
He ducks to avoid the whickering arc of one of Drax's knives as it passes overhead, and flicks his mask back on preparatory to kicking off the ground and heading back into the fray.  
  
I mean, really. What kind of superheroes end up fighting sewer alligators? Only the ones with unresolved issues. Obviously. Not that these were strictly alligators and it was pretty clear that sewage wasn't the only nasty junk that went down the storm drains on Anjukai, but Peter is not about to split hairs in the privacy of his own head. So space gators it is. Giant mutant space gators with glowing corrosive shit spurting out their heads in seemingly endless, toxic gouts. It really couldn't be a better day, except if Thanos had turned up and claimed the space gators were his own personal snookie-pocket-pets.   
  
There is an outbreak of explosions, and the comm crackles in his ear.  
"Hey, shit-for-brains, you awake over there?"  
  
"Hey, buttmunch. No. I'm having a great nap, dreaming about turning you into a Davy Crockett hat."  
  
"Get bent, asshole."  
  
"I am GROOT."  
  
"I _heard_ that! OK, I didn't understand it, but your _tone_ , dude. I'm upset."   
  
"Oh, boo-fuckin'-hoo, ya baby. Get your head back in the game. I've got an idea."  
  
Issues. Serious issues. And this was in no way a surprise, because they were all seriously fucked-up, weren't they? Families, man. Not one of them had a happy, functioning family in their past. Well, not any more, at any rate.   
  
Rocket. Jesus. All those spoilt little rich kids who would whine "I didn't ask to be born!" didn't have shit on Rocket. Rocket hadn't asked to be sentient. One may be born sentient: one may have sentience thrust upon them. With extreme prejudice. And scalpels. It's really not any wonder that he's a foul-mouthed little sociopath, wouldn't trust a saint who was handing out free one-size-fits-all absolutions. Plus, ain't it often the way that the guys with the biggest, quickest brains have a proportionately sized capacity for psychological issues? All that thinking must be bad for their health.   
  
And don't even get started on Groot. Peter jets around, guns blazing, seeing Gamora scaling one of the ugly bastards like it was a tree, her blade a glittering, goop-stained dealer of messy death. The only one of his kind still noticeably around, and the only one who understands him is a raving little furry psycho with severe short-guy syndrome. Basically, Groot was a huge wooden Buddhist who had somehow got roped into being an intergalactic bandit, and then gone and sacrificed himself in a disgustingly noble fashion so he could have another go on the karmic carousel. And now he was a baby with an anger management problem.   
Personally, Peter blamed the parents for that one.   
And speaking of parents, it probably went without saying that Yondu's attitude to therapy would have involved fewer couches and more kicking. Or, most likely, the lovingly-applied phrase "What-chu yammering about, boy? Feelins'? I didn't raise no wet wipe! Now git before I start curing your legs like ham and serving 'em to the crew!"  
  
Yondu. Peter both smiles and half-sobs behind his mask at the memory of that familiar voice. Hell. Probably needed therapy just as bad as any of them, but what can you say? Hard men don't need therapy - he can hear Yondu's sharp, rough tones almost as clear as day - they need drinkin' an' wimmin an' units an' fightin.   
  
He very carefully does not think about Ego. He's wasted enough time on that.   
  
Distracted, he goes down for the second time in under a minute as Drax, knocked from the battle by a flailing space gator tail, is thrown into him. Drax is basically a tank and also severely fucked up, which is a very dangerous combination. He's laid off the wimmin' and the units in favour of purely the fightin' and the drinkin'. Yondu always said that people who didn't want money were among the most dangerous in the world. If you expanded that to "people who don't want money and who are basically an invulnerable knot of pure muscle who have lost everything they ever cared about" you got Drax. Dangerous didn't begin to cover it, especially when you took into account the fact that saying flippant Terran things like "kill me now" while under stress could end very, _very_ badly.   
  
Peter, slightly dazed, feels Drax's immense hand grasp his forearm and haul him up. A slap on the back that nearly sends him back down, then Drax is gone again, bald head lowered bullishly in a charge, laughing like he's a toddler at Disneyworld because there's nothing Drax likes better than kicking the shit out of things and possibly also getting the shit kicked out of him. Masochistic bastard.   
  
Peter kicks up into the air, getting as close to the noisome tunnel ceiling as he dares, and surveys the fight. Drax and Gamora are doing fine, and Rocket's...making something. Very fast. Yeah. There's time for tunes.   
  
He prods the Zune into life and music floods his world. For that brief moment, despite the spectacle of Gamora ripping off a space gator leg with her bare hands, all is peace and rightness in the vicinity of Peter Quill, Star-Lord.   
  
_When the day is dawnin'_  
On a Texas Sunday mornin'  
  
Gamora (who has thrown the leg aside, golly gee look at that thing fly, probably any Terran idiot who tried a phoney British accent and the phrase "I likes a girl with spirit" on her would soon be wearing his balls as an attractive hat, no Peter has not considered this, not even _he's_ that stupid) probably needs therapy most of all. Daddy issues. Sister issues. Kidnapping issues. Guilt issues up the wazoo, although who knows if the Zen Whoberi even have a wazoo to speak of. Oh, and the unspoken issues. Don't let's forget those. Just because they're unspoken doesn't mean they don't exist, no matter what Gamora says.  
  
Peter takes another pot shot right down the cavernous nostril of the nearest gator, and is satisfied to see it bubble in gargling dismay, pawing at its own face and clawing its own eyes as the burn slides into its sinuses.   
  
_Is this the way to Amarillo?_  
_Ev'ry night I've been huggin' my pillow_  
  
Rocket's build has been completed. Peter can see the final closing smack of paw on access panel, and then over the comms comes the triumphant (and slightly worrying) cry of "Hold onto your hats, losers."  
  
_And sweet Marie who waits for me_  
  
The world goes white. The shockwave of sound follows second, a snap of thunderous proportions, so loud it feels as if it should have torn the whole cavern system and the air itself apart.   
  
"Holy crap, Rocket -"  
  
Peter's sensors in the mask have shorted under the influx of light, heat and sound. He retracts it, blinking blindly, thanking whatever gods there are around that he hasn't flown himself into a wall. Or a gator's mouth.    
  
"What was that?" Gamora asks, and it isn't in the tones of horror or surprise or even anger, really. It's more like the weary tones of a mother who has found yet another jamjar stashed at the bottom of a closet with unidentified _things_ crawling around inside it, and isn't so much interested in knowing what they are as much as she is in how they may be prevented from multiplying.   
  
Rocket is howling with laughter by now, his rough voice interrupted occasionally with coughs. "Phosphor bomb. Flash-bang. These underground fuckers really hate the light, don't they? Noticed it when Star-Butt there was shooting them up their snooters."  
  
"I am Groot."  
  
"Yeah! Like little bullies crying to their mommy!"  
  
"That's it," says Peter, relieved beyond measure as his sight starts to recover in the gloom, "I'm getting a thesaurus. Every word I can find in there for rat, I'm using it on you. Forever."  
  
"Ah come on. Worked, didn't it? Don't be such a big -"  
  
The gator rearing up in front of Peter appears so fast that nobody has time to do anything or even cry out a warning.   
  
Nobody, that is, except Drax, who slams into it from the side like a belligerent express train, and Peter can do nothing but yell as he sees fangs as big as his head meet through his friend's collarbone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody can recall seeing Drax bleed this much before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for bad language and descriptions of horrible wounds. Sorry, Drax.

So Drax, yeah? A tank, it's already been established. It's sometimes hard to remember that he's a living, breathing person who can get hurt, and not some kind of surprisingly mobile and aggressive rock. This is the sort of guy who thinks being bashed repeatedly into trees during a poor planetfall is some kind of theme park ride. The sort of guy whose first plan is always "run yelling at it and beat it into submission even if that means it actually eats you".   
  
He got hit by a _spaceship_ and got back up, for Chrissakes. 

Something feels all kinds of wrong about how this situation is going, but Peter, caught in his yell of instinctive shock, is in no position to put his finger on it. Those teeth are frackin' huge and they've cut through Drax's green-blue-beige-gold-grey-whatever-the-crap-his-skin-colour-is like butter, leaking corrosive drool.   
  
"Drax! Drax, _fuck_ -"  
  
But Drax seems undeterred. His brows draw down, those pale eyes glowing with the fury he seems to keep continually banked inside himself. He has been successful. The beast is not eating his friend. The fact that it's now eating _him_ is purely incidental. A minor footnote.   
  
A small grenade explodes in a glancing blow just above the gator's eye, and the hiss of Rocket's jetpack passes low over Peter's head.   
  
"Is there something _wrong_ with you?" Rocket demands, as Drax twists (agh holy fuck now that fang is turning and drilling deeper like a corkscrew, casting up curls of flesh as it does so, and Peter can't watch) and grabs the gator's face by jamming his thumbs into its eye sockets.   
  
"No," is Drax's response. "I strive for perfection." How is he talking? Peter's pretty sure that the only talking he'd be doing in this situation would be restricted to the words "ohshitohshitohshitI'mgonnadie".   
  
"Liar!" Peter manages, trying not to puke. He's seen some truly horrible shit during his life - it's what you get when you live with Ravagers - but apparently seeing Drax's whole shoulder getting turned into ground beef is somewhere way beyond his barf threshold. That feeling of wrongness about this whole thing kicks at the back of his brain, trying to get his attention.   
  
"I am Groot," Groot agrees, dropping from his place on Rocket's leg to cling to Peter's shoulder.   
  
"Yeah, thanks for the backup, buddy."  
  
Gamora is busy proving that she's just as much of a crazy person as Drax by dropping onto the creature's back and ramming her blade down into the base of its neck, like she's trying to turn it into the world's ugliest carousel pony. Sadly it looks like these guys don't keep their nervous systems in the same place as people, because this is only making it madder. It thrashes. Toxic dribble bathes Drax and his bleeding shoulder in glowing, fluorescent yellow. He still isn't letting go. One thumb successfully pierces through the eye socket and Drax yanks it down and freakin' _headbutts_ it, roaring loudly and totally ignoring everything else that's going on.  
  
Gamora changes her tack and stabs repeatedly at the glowing nodules that line the gator's spine, and this finally seems to have the desired effect: writhing and gobbling like a dying turkey, the gator tilts heavily to one side, then collapses. Drax is dragged with it, because of course, fucking naturally, when do they ever have any luck in these situations, death doesn't make this bastard let go. It's locked its jaw like a bulldog and Drax is wrenched to the floor as it falls, bleeding profusely a sort of reddish-purple-grey colour and saying something Peter can't quite catch.   
  
Rocket lands swiftly and advances on Drax, already pulling out a bunch of tools from one of those pockets that apparently hold everything except tape (Peter's pretty sure that Rocket must keep half this stuff shoved down his underwear, that's if he wears underwear) and swearing loudly as he carries on a personal monologue on the subject of _idiots_ and _d'ast cheapskates_ and  _this fuckin' job_.   
  
"...teeth and spittle....fuck you lizard-breath...I oughtta..."  
  
He's trying to pry the jaws apart with a crowbar, and Drax just lies there, lets him do it, doesn't wince more than a little. He isn't laughing or declaiming a glorious victory. This strikes Peter as ominous. Drax lives for this crap. He genuinely isn't happy unless there's something he can hit, and it can hit back. But now he is silent, the massive ugly head of his attacker almost seeming cradled to his chest, as Rocket gets out a hacksaw and some kind of small arc welding device Peter last saw him use on a broken bulkhead.   
  
Gamora lands next to them, looking ridiculously fresh and unslimed considering, and bends to Drax's side. "What do you need?" she asks. Not _are you OK_ or _shit that looks like it hurts you poor fucker_ or even _awesome headbutt, dude_. Such is the warrior's life, obviously. Insert comforting zen assassin mantra here. So much therapy required. Seriously.   
  
"Is today stupid question day or something?" Rocket interrupts before Drax can say anything. "He needs me to get this overgrown gecko out of his chest. Don't worry, buddy," he adds, pulling down a welding mask (yep, definitely has to be keeping this stuff down his pants) "this won't hurt a bit. Your skin is tougher than Terran, right? Won't feel a thing."  
  
Drax just gives Rocket a weary side-eye and says nothing, another part of the overall wrongness which Peter is literally (honestly, it was on the tip of his tongue the whole time, another moment and he'd have done it) about to make a comment upon, and then he convulses, his huge torso arching up in a painful bow, and a line of dark blood trails from the corner of his mouth.   
  
Nobody can recall seeing Drax bleed this much before. Peter's unsteady, uncomfortable sense of being on the wrong side of the mirror focuses, contracts onto that single line of blood on the Destroyer's face, becomes obvious. For a single second the remaining four of them stand, immobile, until Groot hops down to clutch Drax's twitching hand with his tiny fingers. The little tree makes a high, thready wailing sound of distress, pitched somewhere between the syllables "grooo" and "aaaaaaaaaam".  
  
For once, no translation required.

And then they all move, together, to help their friend. 


End file.
